22 Jan Terrorism and Civil Liberties

Since the attacks of 911, the US has been changed greatly. The mood of the nation has changed from one of a fair and just people with a love of personal freedom and privacy, to a semi Police-State, where privacy and liberty are secondary to the governments desires. The Constitutional limitations placed on the government by our founding fathers are violated with impunity on a daily basis, now, and to question anything the government does is considered ‘unpatriotic’ and can land you on a
terrorist’ list, where you will lose even more of your freedoms.

If you don’t believe this, just ask attorney Brandon Mayfield, wrongly accused of involvement in the Madrid bombing as a result of bogus evidence, including mistaken fingerprint identification. He was imprisoned for over 2 weeks, denied access to legal council, and his family was not informed of his whereabouts. He was released when a Federal Judge dismissed his case, after the FBI re-examined its case on a material witness warrant. A lot of the information was proven to be false, and in some cases, even fabricated. His crime: He offered legal aid in a Child Custody case to a man who later tried to go to Afghanistan…and, Mayfield was an Islamic American citizen. Was anyone in the FBI fired, or reprimanded?……Absolutely not. Mayfields story is just one of many where our government now sanctions the suspension of Constitutional Rights whenever it pleases.

There are two diametrically opposed issues at hand. One is Liberty, and the other is Order. In peacetime, the courts traditionally have always leaned towards individual Liberty, with all the protections of the Constitution (most of them, anyway). But in war time, the courts have leaned more towards Order, allowing for the suspension of Constitutional Rights for selected groups of people. A good example of this was the illegal ‘re-location’ of Japanese-Americans during WW-II. So, in effect, all the government needs is any sort of crisis, real, or perceived, to deprive Americans of their Rights under our laws. And if a crisis cannot be found, they can manufacture one, such as the War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, etc….
This tactic has a long history of successful use, starting with Rome under Nero. He needed an excuse to practice virtual genocide against Christians, whom he hated for some reason. He had his people set fire to parts of Rome, then blamed Christians for this ancient act of Terrorism, gaining the support of both the Senate, and the public for his brutal persecutions.

The Nazis in 1930s needed a crisis to take over the then Democratic Republic of Germany. The Jews and Bolsheviks were prime candidates for a frame-up, and Hitler was a master at exploitations. After many acts of terrorism, committed by Hitlers thugs and blamed on Jews and the Bolsheviks, the Nazis gained more power. Remember, Hitler did not take over Germany by force. He was elected, in perfectly legal elections, by people just like you and me. A fire at the Reichstag was the final kicker that allowed Hitler to dissolve the Republic and become the dictator.

Around the turn of the century, President William McKinely’s business associates wanted to expand into the then Spanish-controlled island of Cuba. He hired newspaperman William Randolph Hearst, another friend, to file bogus stories of supposed Spanish brutality against Cuban nationals. Of course, these incidents were pure fiction. But they were not enough to enrage the public enough to start a war. The subsequent explosion and sinking of the USS Main while in a Cuban harbor was blamed on the Spanish, who denied any involvement. An investigation of the wreck in the 1970s, led by Admiral Hyman J. Rickover, a US Navy legend, and possibly one of the most intelligent men I have ever met, determined the explosion was internal, and most likely caused by coal dust, and probably done on purpose. This was the incident that allowed the US to declare war on Spain, opening the country up to American businesses, and allowing Theodore Roosevelt to gain enough fame to secure a later term as the US President.

In 1940, President Roosevelt desperately needed a war to divert attention from his failed recovery attempts from the Depression (New Deal stuff) that was leading the country towards socialism. Germany’s re-armament, in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, was the obvious target, but America was severely isolationist at that time. The Administration needed an overt act that would anger the people enough to support a war. The first attempt was the Lend-Lease scheme, in direct violation of the Neutrality Act. Next, US destroyers began escorting English convoys, also in violation of the Neutrality Act, and even illegally engaging German submarines in International waters. None of these actions resulted in the desired hostile act. When Japan became an ally of Germany, it gave Roosevelt another target. Sanctions were passed against Japan, using their invasion of China as an excuse, even though up to that time, the US couldn’t have cared less about China. This caused Japan to have to invade Indochina for natural resources, and the US was the only nation capable of interfering with them at that time (the rest of the world was too busy fighting the Germans). To further ‘sweeten’ the bait, Roosevelt had the US Pacific fleet moved from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, a totally useless and unnecessary act designed to further provoke Japan in to attacking. Subsequent investigations have proved that the administration knew about the attack, when and how it was to be carried out, and were even listening to the radio transmissions of the fleet as it made its way to Hawaiian water (the claim that the fleet observed radio silence is a myth, as new discoveries of recordings have proved). Overseas commanders were purposely kept in the dark as to what was happening. And as an added bonus, the Japanese Ambassador to the US miscalculated the time differences between Washington, and Tokyo, and delivered the Declaration of War after the attack. This was just what Roosevelt needed to get Congress to declare war.

President Lyndon B. Johnson needed a war in the 1960s to help his friends who had failing defense industries. A civil war was raging in Vietnam, a country that could’ve never threatened the US even if it wanted to. LBJ needed a crisis. He sent a destroyer, the USS Maddox, to collect intelligence off the coast of Vietnam, to be given to attacking Laotian Air Force, and South Vietnam units. While this did not provoke the North Vietnamese enough to attack, a ‘green’ sonar operator became very scared, and reported the sounds of his own ships propellers as those of approaching ‘Torpedo Boats’ (which would’ve been no match for the Maddox in any case). Even though the ships captain radioed that the report was in error, Johnson used the report, known as the Maddox Incident, to get support for intervention in Vietnam. The resulting war dragged on for 8 years, created over 47,000 US casualties, and involved over 3 million American military personnel, including this author.

In 1990, President George Bush needed a war. Bush was a Texas oilman, and his family controlled Standard Oil, one of the major oil companies in the world. OPEC was failing to limit the supplies of crude oil from the Middle East, and the market was being flooded with Iraqi oil. This was bringing prices down to a semi-reasonable rates, and cutting into Bush’s profits, which he could assume after leaving office. He needed a provocative incident to convince Congress to intervene. Iraqis invasion of Kuwait was not enough, by itself. He hired a publicity firm to create a bogus film of supposed Iraqi troops pulling babies from Kuwaiti hospital incubators and leaving them, to die. The film was tearfully narrated by a ‘Kuwaiti nurse’, who was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. The media was a party to the deception from the start (no one ever asked why the nurses just didn’t pick the babies up, wrap them in blankets, and move them somewhere safe?). As a result, the US was able to convince the UN to involve over 14 nations in a combined military action against Iraq, cutting off supplies of Iraqi oil to the world, and driving oil prices back into the stratosphere, where they remain to this day.
In 1995, US President Bill Clinton saw the civil war in Bosnia (formerly Yugoslavia) as a chance to expand the US presence in the mineral rich-area. Using the same publicity company that former President Bush had used, a fake picture was created of a ‘prisoner’ in a ‘concentration camp’ behind barbed-wire, looking out forlornly. This was widely circulated, along with as many references to Nazi’s and Nazi’s atrocities as they could work in. This was enough to get a UN force sent in to the area to intervene. Later investigation proved that the photo was fake, The photographer shot a picture of Refugee Camp, with no barbed wire or guards around it. The photographer shot the picture from a tool shed, surrounded by barbed wire. He was the one ‘on the inside looking out’.

Bill Clinton also arranged another incident during his administration in order to defer attention from an illicit sexual tryst in the White House with a young female intern. He ordered a cruise missile strike on buildings in Sudan and Afganistan that were supposedly manufacturing ‘Weapons of Mass destruction’ (this excuse was also used later by President George (the second) W. Bush, also known as G. W. to invade Iraq a second time, after the attacks on 9-11.) Examination of the wreckage of the buildings showed that they were in fact guilty….of manufacturing aspirin.

G.W. Bush’s claims of Iraq’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction”. aided and abetted by Condoleza Rice, have also been exposed as totally false. Yet, we are still involved in that war, and no one has ever been held responsible, or accountable for lying to the American public, and Congress.
Once they lost it, the Romans never got their Republic back. Germany never got their Republic back once it was gone. In both countries, their cultures had to be destroyed before any semblance of freedom was ever restored.

Remember that the next time Cassius says that Sparticus approaches….
Remember that when the Maddox is attacked…
Remember that when the Riechstag burns down….
Remember that next time a President lies to you about “weapons of mass destruction”